Legally Damned
by SpiffyIsAsSpiffyDoes
Summary: COMPLETE! My first serious fic, for the underappreciated RyukRaito pairing. It all starts with a fit...
1. Debate

Legally Damned

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, who does around here anyway?

By SpiffyBalak

Chapter 1

At times, it was good to have a six-foot tall imaginary friend. School wasn't helping Raito keep his cool, and with details of the Kira case spreading around To-oh like an enraged baboon, Ryuk floating around kept him sane enough to not switch the attendance sheet with Death Note paper.

Ryuk put on little shows for him, often taking advantage of his incorporal nature. He'd play hopscotch on his classmates' heads, make silly faces behind the professors' backs, tell jokes during awkward silences, and steal apples if he could find them. Supposedly, he didn't care for Raito (or anyone), but he wasn't doing a good job of proving it.

This didn't relieve Raito of his righteous anger. He was still collecting the names of criminals, because as far as he was concerned, the government didn't know how to handle them.

"There seems to be a group of people-thankfully, they're a minority-that just can't be cured of their criminal insanity. They do the crimes, they're put in prison, they're well behaved, oh, they're model prisoners!-then they're released and go on murderous rampages or whatever, just like before. They have various reasons for acting like this-sometimes mental illness, sometimes sheer boredom. Why should we release them at all? Lock 'em up and throw away the key!"

Tatsuya Hiroyama sighed. "Because we can't tell if they might've been framed. It's better to let hundreds of guilty men run free than to imprison someone innocent or keep someone who's repentant locked up."

"Then they should get evaluated upon entering and exiting prison, and not just psychologically. It would be helpful to know just who can become a productive member of society again. And we gotta have enough room for them! Some random guy swallowing what he thinks is E isn't harming anyone but himself, but the prisons are filled to the brim with those kinds of people, so if Bubba gets mad and stabs someone to death, there's a good chance he can walk free, because they gotta have room for the potheads!" Raito slammed his fist on the desk hard enough for a few cracks to form.

"But drugs ruin just as many lives as murderers, perhaps more. My uncle was shot by the guy that sold him heroin because he didn't pay up..."

"So can drinking. But most people can have a drink every once in a while without ruining their lives. Most drug users don't kill for their next fix, and many are responsible members of society. If I were in charge, I'd abolish all those laws against victimless crimes, and chase after the actual threats," Raito grumbled. "In America, if some hippie smokes pot, and gets arrested for possession, his ass is thrown in jail for god-knows-how-many years, but if he kills his girlfriend first, he walks in-hey, what the...?" Raito felt a strange tingling on his arms, and jerked irrhythmically, trying to shake whatever it was off him.

Tatsuya blinked. "Raito, are you all r-"

"Ayeagh! I'm-gyaa!"

The tingle had spread all over his body, and the heat was searing his flesh like lava, particularly around his gums, where he could feel tiny drops of blood form. Raito's eyes flew up into his skull, where lights flashed rapidly in different colors, red, blue, yellow, green, orange, over and over again as his heart pounded like a machine gun. The lava sank into his muscles, starting with his feet, where it sliced through tissue like someone cutting up a pizza, and it crawled up his legs, his torso, dipped into his arms and hands, and his fingernails were melting and being forged into knifes...

Then, just as the force was about to reach his neck, Raito stiffened. Muscle by muscle, the pain went away, and his eyes seemed to drop back into his sockets.

He quickly ran his hands over his body.

Nothing new. No claws, no fangs, no wings. He hadn't even gotten taller.

"Eeeeghhhh..."

"What the hell? I'll call a-"

"No, I'll make it through the day. It was probably just a fluke. If it happens again, I'll see a doctor." Raito stretched his arms and gave a half-smile.

Tatsuya glanced at his classmate.

"All right-o..."


	2. Pondering

Chapter 2

Even with Tatsuya looking at him funny every 15 minutes when they had a class together, the day went by smoothly after fourth period. Raito poured over vast tomes of law, kanji speeding in and out of his view in a marathon, with his attention as the trophy. He copied each law until his right hand was numb, then switched to his left and started again (Natural selection favored ambidextrous law students). In short, all was normal.

Well, except that he hadn't seen Ryuk since the seizure thing.

Raito remembered this while he was slurping some udon, and nearly choked on a half-swallowed noodle and a slice of chewed-up pork. Ryuk normally followed him like a lost puppy. Though he could make himself invisible at will, like if Raito was taking a test and needed to concentrate or something similar. So Ryuk was most likely still in the room when...aw, hell!

What reason did he have for doing something like that? He didn't plan on killing Raito, he said, until things got too boring, and the Kira case was only getting more exciting. Ryuk didn't seem to like him a lot, but neither did he seem to hate him. There probably wasn't any malicious intent. But Raito didn't know what the fuck Ryuk did to him.

Wow, Ryuk.

He was always intrigued that an apple-addicted personification of death itself was following him around because of boredom. If he could fly around wherever he wanted and could pass through anything, he would no doubt get plenty of entertainment. But most of the time he was hanging out with Raito, even if they were both bored out of their minds.

He wasn't boring to look at, no doubt about that. From the neck up, Ryuk was like a clown in an old black-and-white movie, with tiger-like eyes, steely gray skin, thick black lips that concealed glimmering white fangs, and wild hair that reminded Raito of Vegeta in Dragonball Z. The rest of him was a demonic Charles Atlas, with bulging muscles everywhere(but why did Shinigami need them if they were spirits?)-and all wrapped up in tight black leather...

Wait, what exactly was he thinking? Why was he feeling in love all of a sudden? If he had to feel it, why hadn't he known it when he HADN'T gotten over the novelty of having a personal hitman, when he would've expected strange emotions and it would've made sense?

Either way, it was horribly wrong, he raged at his subconscious mind as he inhaled the last of the tempura bits and walked out of the restaurant. He was a human, and the Death Note specifically stated that if Ryuk killed to save him, he would be destroyed. Also, Shinigami couldn't have sexual relations with humans-even sex with their own kind was forbidden (then how were new ones made?). So he couldn't fuck him if he wanted to do such a thing.

That was also unsettling. Raito and Ryuk were both male, the thought of him...doing things...with someone with the same equipment as him was enough to make his crotch cold.

Then again, wasn't that only because he had been taught that? That was the logic of the haters of Kira, he thought as opened the door of his room. They were content with the status quo, and feared what they didn't understand, what was new, what was natural, what the world needed to become a better place. It was the same thing, except on a personal level. It's not like he'd have to tell anyone. Plus, being a self-hating gay...or bi...or whatever he was wouldn't make him happy.

Right then and there, Raito cut through a layer of irrationality with the knife of reason, which was held in the trembling hand of infatuation. He smiled at his spur-of-the-moment poetry as he drifted off to sleep.


	3. Interrogation

Chapter 3

First period was study hall, or as the students called it, "Nap Class." Most people who were there just needed schedule filler. Half of the students at any given time in there were asleep, and a quarter of the desks had permanent drool-stains. Raito had set his lunchbox on the empty desk behind him, so he almost had a bed. He had heard of one kid bringing an actual blanket and pillow in, but someone sitting near him got in a fight with him over it, and it was ripped before it could be used.

"Oi, look at the girl in the purple sweater 5 rows away." Ryuk was poking Raito's shoulder to get his attention. On a Friday. In Nap Class. 10 minutes after the bell.

Not very pleasant.

"Nice to see you again Ryuk."

"Look what she's writing."

"Where?"

"In her notebook."

"I can't see it."

"Our name. Over and over. "

"Our name?"

"She's been writing it for the past half hour in bright red ink."

"Hm."

"You wanna see?" Ryuk's tongue lashed out like a snake's.

"Ung...yh!?"

With a snicker, Ryuk wrapped his powerful arms around Raito's torso and held him to his chest, then jumped up, wings beating furiously until they were directly above the girl. At first his sleepy eyes only saw red blobs, but soon enough he could make out "Kira loves Sakura" all over the paper.

"Like I said."

Raito waited to be dropped into his desk again, but that never happened. If he shouted for help, that would only draw attention to the fact that he was (seemingly)suspended in midair. Instead, they zoomed out the open door and into the hallway, where Ryuk accelerated at a roller-coaster pace, pausing at at various classrooms as if searching for something. Each stop made Raito's head spin, and just when he felt like passing out, they came to a complete stop outside classroom 493.

"Listen," commanded Ryuk as he held Raito, who was still catching his breath, to the glass of the door, so he could see the portly man in his forties lecturing.

"As Plato once said, good people do not need law to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find ways around the laws. We aren't interested in casting pearls before swine or preaching to the choir. We seek to keep the moral middle class at bay, those who might be tempted. If they were to break loose, modern society would crumble. The legally damned can justify their innocence by examining the wording of the rule and finding an exploit. But those men are few, and the laws cover enough cases so we can survive in relative health and prosperity."

Ratio tried to shrug. "And your point is?"

Ryuk lowered his head until he was looking directly down at Raito, his hot breath scalding his face. Ryuk flicked his long, thin tongue at Raito's chin until it struck his lower lip. Then he set Raito on the floor, and after a few seconds of stumbling, Raito was standing upright.

"I am legally damned. And I expect you will be too."

"What do you mean? Is there some hidden law in the Death Note that says you can break a few rules after a certain number of deaths?"

"Negative. I'm talking about something you may have experienced more than me, because you humans are expected to feel it, and we Shinigami aren't supposed to. It is possible for us to experience emotions, but we are supposed to repress them, especially when dealing with humans. Remember Jealous?"

"What? Anger? Happiness? Sadness?"

"Every single one of them. For most of my life, I've had an easy time with that. Humans just seemed like giant wind-up toys, and it was fun to break them. The facial expressions were especially fun to watch. I prided myself on killing them in many interesting ways, from domino arrangements to people dressing in specific colors before collapsing into a morbid rainbow. However, you're the first human I've spoken to in a long time, if you don't count the occasional taunting of a dying person who managed to touch the Death Note," Ryuk smirked as he picked up Raito and flew back to the doorway of Nap Class even faster than the first time, as if he had been procrastinating the trip for a long time and now just wanted it over with.

Raito thought of the owls from the internet. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. If I was a human and had a brain scan, it would detect a drop in serotonin. If I was human in France, I could kill someone I found in bed with you, it'd be excused as a crime of passion."

Raito felt his face flush magenta. "In bed with...wha-eh...!?"

Ryuk shifted his weight (or what it felt like) to his left leg. Anxiety was one emotion he'd especially like to be without. "I'm in love with you, Raito."

Then he flew through the wall to the next room, leaving Raito to ponder just what the fuck happened.


	4. Cross Examination

Chapter 4

Raito slumped back into his seat.

Hah. What a coincidence. Yesterday he admitted his feelings to himself, and now Ryuk admitted identical feelings to him. It was too perfect, like something from a bad movie.

But those kinds of movies were bad because happiness in others isn't fun to watch unless you care about them. Drama makes you care about characters, especially unresolved drama. Drama could make you feel superior, because your life didn't seem so bad when compared to someone who lost his wife and kids to an epidemic. But if you saw a movie about some guy and his beautiful wife, darling children and high-powered job, about happy people, about consistently happy people, it would offend more than all the bigoted language in the world. Normal people want to hear about people like them, who struggle to get what they want, so they can feel like they have a chance. They want people to be humble so they can feel superior at the first fuck-up. If someone in real life gets a lucky break, then people want to drag him back down-tall poppy syndrome.

Raito decided that if their love was genuine (or genuine enough), he should stop worrying about the little Roger Ebert in his head and just enjoy the ride.

---------------

When the lunch bell rang, Raito dashed into the cafeteria, a bustling mini-metropolis where you could get rid of your hunger and your sense of hearing in the same second. Thousands of law students were eating, drinking, and he even saw a few being merry. There was plenty of conversation, which was comforting- if a large group of people suddenly shut up, or don't even talk in the first place, then you knew something was wrong.

All the kids were talking about either personal events or talking about the Kira case. Raito could only tell this much, everything else was tuned out by his growling stomach, which felt like it would dissolve in its own acids. He sat at a table and tugged out his lunch, which was nikuman with pork fried rice (he loved pork), plus the apple he packed yesterday for Ryuk and the bizarrely named Men's Pocky for dessert. He bit one of the steaming nikuman.

"Oi, Raito."

"Mhguhk!?" Raito looked over his shoulder, then swallowed, partially because of the chewed-up pork and pastry, and partially to make sure he didn't stutter from stress. He really had to fasten his seatbelt before he could enjoy this ride.

"Ryuk!" Okay, prepare yourself. Don't pause for too long. "Ryuk, about how you said you were in love with me..."

The shinigami stared directly into Raito's irises in anticipation. He was smiling slightly, because if he was this eager to answer him, his response had to be positive.

"By sheer coincidence, the night before I did a little thinking..."

Ryuk leaned in closer.

"...and realized that I..."

Ryuk could've sworn that those eyes had clouded like glass on a humid day.

"...am also infatuated with you."

Ryuk smiled a gentle version of his usual grin. "Perfect enough."

"So you didn't have to float into the next class after your confession." Then Raito's expression turned serious. "But what about yesterday, while I was debating with Tatsuya? That thing was like a-"

"That was me. Smart boy." Ryuk grabbed the apple and took a big bite from the middle. "That wasn't a love charm. Shinigami don't officially love, so they don't have any magic relating to love."

"Then what the hell was that for? Were you testing me or somthing?" Raito raised his voice slightly, though not enough to make passing students try to stuff him full of antipsychotics.

Ryuk took what looked like a deep breath. "I was attempting to put a spell on you, but I stopped. I realized that I didn't have your permission and would most likely hate my guts afterwards."

Raito's face turned a light shade of purple. "I see. At least you realized that you fucked up and stopped it."

"It was from a moment of sudden emotion. Part of the reason why Shinigami are discouraged from having emotions is because they're supposed to repress them in the first place. But it's like a pressure cooker. You bottle them up for so long, they start to get so strong that you can't hold them in, and so they come out with a bang, such as your little seizure. This only convinces the Shinigami King that emotions are no good, since he's only seen the two extremes: bottling it in and keeping it in, or letting it out and causing trouble in the human world, which prevents them from killing people."

"Ah, I see now." Raito's face softened. "It happens in humans too, you know."

"That's right. Like in the Columbine Massacre. Two outsider kids who decided they wouldn't take getting beaten up anymore, so they proved their point with death. Because of that, people only know quiet outcasts who are beaten up then don't complain, or angry outcasts who are beaten up then grab an AK-47 and shoot up their schools. In both cases, you never hear about the middle ground."

"Exactly." It looked like the container was sucking Raito's face as he lifted a clump of rice into his mouth using only his tongue. "But what would've that power done if you didn't stop it?"

Ryuk smiled his default evil grin. "The rules forbid us from killing people out of love for another human. I certainly would be tempted to do that in the future. However, there's a loophole in that law. It doesn't mention other Shinigami...that was why I was gone for most of yesterday. Pawing through ancient books of magic, not unlike those law books you read religiously." He licked his lips. "I finally found a spell that would detach a mind and spirit from the body of a human Death Note user. If the human has killed enough people, by the Death Note or otherwise, the spirit would form a new Shinigami body and go into limbo with the mind, which would be in a seizure-like state until that person died. Then the mind would be installed in the new body, and a new Shinigami is produced, with all human memories intact."

"Wow..." Raito inhaled the last of the fried rice. "And the rules can't touch you, since you'd be killing me, and fufilling the agreement."

Ryuk nodded and sheared the apple of its flesh and popped the core in his mouth, speaking between bites. "No rule says that Shinigami can't fall in love. The only restrictions are on sex with humans or Shinigami, and killing to make sure a human won't die. But in our case, Rule 36 won't apply. This is because sex is strictly defined as male-female coitus, which is the only kind that results in reproduction."

"Haha, so they're taking the Bill Clinton approach..."

"Exactly. They don't want Shinigami breeding for a number of reasons. If it were legal, there'd be too many of us and not enough humans to supply us with life force, so we'd all be dead. Since most Shinigami would pick the opposite sex if they could, the rules just forbid sexual activity period. If it added exceptions for non-procreative acts, we'd just get confused." He swallowed the apple core.

"Why can't they just make birth control?" Raito asked.

"Because they don't want little baby Shinigamis in the first place, and suppressing emotion has a lower failure rate." Ryuk tapped his claws on the table. "You know about the bubonic plague?"

Raito grimaced. "In first grade, we had to watch a very graphic video about it. Three kids threw up and five ran away."

"Hyuk, hyuk," Ryuk snickered. "That was caused by a love story gone sour. Around that time, two Shinigami fell in love and bred. A lot. They and their children all needed to kill humans, so they created the plague to do it quickly, easily, and without much work on their parts. The Shinigami King found out and threw their asses in hell before they could say 'Whoops'. Then he made Rule 36. Just in case we learned about sex from a hentai or two on Earth, he banned that too. To discourage us from even caring about them, he ruled that we couldn't kill to save another's life. And besides, making new life is the antithesis to the Shinigami credo, which is to stop life."

"Ah, I see," said Raito. "So as a Shinigami, I could fuck your brains out and it would be legit."

"There is one catch," Ryuk answered. "Everytime a Shinigami has sex, it drains from their life force. So to break even, instead of a post-sex cigarette or even an apple, you'd have to kill someone. And there will always be people who punch out of the pressure cooker of life with a gun in tow, so you'll have a steady supply of bodies. That's the closest you'll have to a philosopher's stone." Ryuk's plump charcoal lips curved upwards. "Perhaps there is a spell that takes life force from plants and animals if crime ever completely stops. Or you can just use vegetables," he added with a chuckle as he pinched a stick of Pocky and slid it into Raito's mouth, who twisted his head, making the chocolate part break off onto his tongue.

Ryuk licked his lips.

"I want to taste it."

Raito reached for the green box, but before he could pick up a new Pocky, Ryuk placed his large hands around his head.

"Wahuh?"

"Don't move," commanded Ryuk as he lowered his head to Raito's. In one quick movement, Ryuk's tongue parted Raito's lips, curled into a straw shape, then sucked up all of the saliva-soaked Pocky.

Ryuk didn't stop there. He pressed his lips against Raito's as his tongue searched Raito's mouth (probably not for more Pocky crumbs), rising and falling against each cheek like a waterfall in a thunderstorm, rubbing the veiny bumps at the top, and slithering over each tooth in a sweet daze. Then Ryuk's tongue excited in a puff of air. Ryuk stood up on the table, jaw dropping at what he had finally done.

Raito just smirked. "How do you like them apples?"


	5. Sentencing

Chapter 5

Raito decided to transform from human to Shinigami for a few reasons. One, he would be able to dish out justice for a very long time (forever was a possibility), two, he wouldn't have to worry about L tracking him down and throwing him in jail before he could say "Whoops", three, if he felt particularly ambitious, he could have people worship him and do his bidding, and four, there was the matter of Ryuk.

So on that night, after enjoying a piggyback ride on Ryuk's back through an apple orchard, he and Raito made their way back to his dorm. Everything had to look typical.

"Pen?" Raito looked at his...boyfriend for affirmation.

"Check."

"Spellbook?"

Ryuk dropped the spellbook on the floor, making a noise somewhat like a nuclear warhead going off in hurricane force winds. "Check. Messy desk?"

"Check." Raito rummaged through his drawers until he found the Death Note, handed it to Ryuk, then flopped down on the bed. "Check, and our work is done!"

"Hyuk hyuk, you're too eager Raito. I gotta cast the spell on you, wait for your mind and body to seperate, and then write your name in the Death Note. It won't do anything if we just leave it here." Ryuk opened the spellbook.

Raito looked around the room, side to side, then at Ryuk. "Will it hurt?"

"Don't you remember the first time, while in class? It'll hurt like a four-alarm bitch and last a long time, like having a seizure in a volcano. But look on the bright side. Instead of doing it sitting in a desk while wearing a tight suit and scrutinized by 30 law students, you get to have it done while you're on a bed, naked, and the only other being in the room is your boyfriend," said Ryuk as he tapped the weird runes with his index finger and opened his Death Note to the first blank page.

"Ok. Then let's get this fucking over with!" Raito pumped his arm, blissfully unaware of the lexical ambiguity of his adrenaline-fueled bravado.

"Legally damned to legally screwed..." Ryuk tittered as he searched the page for the spell, found it, and began chanting.

"Elekanahmennahmenahtumahtumelekanahmenelekanahmennahmenahtumahtumelekanahmen..."

Then the tingling sensation reappeared.

"I call to the mind and spirit of this human!" Ryuk gestured at Raito mysteriously.

"Fu-fuck!" Just like last time, the tingling entered every pore and every vein, and it turned Raito's blood into liquid fire, melting the arteries and electrocuting the nerves, and slammed his eyes in some direction, feeling like he was in a defective private car in Space Mountain, as his stomach and heart collided with each other until they were stuck together and shot around his body like a pinball.

"Form into a new agent of death and shuffle off this mortal coil!"

Raito then felt the heat melting his limbs, and twisted, screaming for what was left of his life as he felt his body expand. Limbs lengthened and filled with muscle, nails painfully shot out into claws, and his mouth filled with blood (he knew it because he tasted it) as his gums pulled back and glittering silver fangs pushed his human teeth away, which he spat out. Two shimmering wings bursted out of his back, and he reflexively stretched them.

At that moment, Ryuk pulled out his pen, and with jittering hands, carved "Yagami Raito" into the paper. Exactly 40 seconds later, Raito felt all the pain compress into the middle of his chest. Ryuk saw the new god smile as he whispered, "Thank you."

---------------

"Oi, Raito." Ryuk poked the former human with the blunt edge of a claw, and Raito blinked exactly eight times before his eyes stayed open.

"Hm? Where am I?"

"In the Shinigami realm." Ryuk pulled Raito up from the soft black bed and pointed at his reflection in the mirror.

After a few moments remembering what had happened, Raito looked at the mirror. He was much taller than he was as a human, now on level with Ryuk, with golden skin hugged by a tight white outfit. Raito's head now held bulbous eyes as blue as window cleaner, and purple-red lips that barely covered his fangs. He now had a martial artist-like physique (he still didn't know why he needed it if he killed people with calligraphy) topped off with bronze bat-wings.

"Hyuk hyuk, I like what I see." Ryuk licked his lips.

"So do I. But what about my body on Earth?"

"It's the same as it was before you transformed, just no longer operating. What you felt transforming was your spirit, which now serves the purpose of your body. Some passerby heard screaming from your room, and called the police. When they arrived, they saw you dead in your bed of a heart attack. And that was that." Ryuk reached for an apple he had cached under the pillow. "Your family is devastated, but your father now can convince L that you weren't Kira, so they're also relieved. Got it?"

"Yeah, I se-" Raito's eyes widened as he looked at Ryuk's hand. "O-oh..."

"Is everything all Raito, Raito?"

"Ye-yeah...I...just...want...the..."

"Oh, you want the apple? Very well. A toast to the reborn!" Ryuk tossed the apple directly into Raito's mouth.

Raito held his mouth open, and when the fruit dropped inside, it was impaled on his lower teeth and leaked its sweet juice all over his tongue. It was like the morphine he took in the hospital when he broke his femur, except this only hit his mouth, making his taste buds beg for more. He bit down, splitting the apple in half with his upper teeth, and both halves of it slipped onto his tongue. Then Raito tipped his head back and chewed some more, crushing the halves into quarters and the quarters into eighths, each crunch releasing more and more juice until it made his whole mouth tingle with delight.

"Awh mah go'! Dis is SO good!" Raito gushed while swallowing the apple slowly, savoring the taste even as it slithered down his esophagus. "I see why you always asked me for them! It's like there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited!"

Ryuk just looked on adoringly.


	6. Imprisoned

Chapter 6

It turned out that Shinigami life was very easy.

Raito had to learn one thing, though. He didn't have a problem getting names as a human, with the internet, TV and radio, but now with his eyes he could get the names simply by looking at them. But as Raito found out, simple did not always equal easy.

"How do you tell which person has which name, especially if you look them in a crowd?"

"Like I said," sighed Ryuk, "if you focus, or fly over them, you can see a ray of light coming from that person. You zoom in and..."

"Got it. Thanks." Raito scribbled down the name that popped up over a scruffy looking guy who was holding a gun to a woman's head.

Ha ha, Shizuko.

That's a pretty funny name for a male.

But who in their right mind would name their daughter Akira?

Oh, fuck.

He wrote down the woman's name instead!

Damn, he might as well make it non-suspicious.

He added "gunshot", and waited the agonizingly long remaining seconds until it came true. Then he nearly tore the paper while jotting down "Ukyamama Akira".

The rest of that day, Raito made 5-minute trips to Earth while triple-checking that he hadn't written down a victim's name instead of a criminal's name. At about 11 PM, Ryuk convinced Raito to train his vision to follow lines like a native Shinigami. It took a lot of books of mazes and trips through high-security prisons playing what might be called "Death Darts", but Raito eventually became confident enough in his eyes at about 3 AM the next day.

---------------

To combat the boredom that Raito realized plagued Shinigami, he and Ryuk would take trips to the human world because a lot more happened there. They flew around the world, Raito acting as Ryuk's personal tour guide. They had a lot of fun flying around and taking stupid pictures. One had them hanging from the noses of Mt. Rushmore, another featured them playing catch with the Imperial Regalia of Japan, yet another showcased their breakdancing abilities on top of the Paris Opera's infamous chandelier, and Ryuk's favorite was his graffiti on the top of some Egyptian pyramid, "Shinigami were here, hyuk hyuk". Raito even persuaded Ryuk to go to Tokyo Disneyland, but they both screamed in pain and flew away after they went near "It's a Small World".

After they decided to take a break from Earth for a bit to evade any little singing zombie children, Raito was thumbing through Ryuk's spellbook one night, after learning to turn pages without ripping holes in them with his claws. Most offensive spells followed one of two formats-either they directed energy at an enemy, or exploited an enemy's weaknesses from within. There were defensive spells that guarded against the energy based spells with a sort of rock-paper-scissors system, but your weaknesses couldn't be protected by magic, you had to pray that they couldn't figure them out. The book stated in a rare moment of humor that, if by chance, a foe knew your mortal weakness, smile a lot and run like hell.

The energy spells reminded Raito of magic in Dragon Warrior III-not very creative but fun-sounding. His eyes focused on the entry for "Firebolt".

"In the air, draw the kanji for fire with a finger and punch where you drew it, and a stream of fire will shoot in that direction. Its intensity will be determined by how hard you punch."

Sounded easy enough.

Raito jumped to an empty space and moved his hand in quick defined strokes. His fingertips crackled with heat, and a brilliant blaze erupted from his hand, blasting across the area at the speed of lightning.

Awesome! He grinned, and noted that his grin was becoming more like a proper Shinigami's. That thought made him grin harder.

Raito continued to paw through. The energy spells were mostly kanji-punching, while the weakness-hitters were kanji-throwing-draw a kanji and mime tossing it at your enemy. One spell with a name that was ripped out had really funny instructions. You had to dance a dance like the hokey cokey while snapping your fingers and clicking your tongue. What kind of spell could that be? He turned the page again.

"Is it a good read, Harry Potter?"

"Keh!?"

"Don't worry Raito, it's me." Ryuk dropped a barrel on the ground. "It's full of a bunch of Fujis from the apple orchard we flew across. The foreman saw it levitating 5 feet off the ground, but it was worth it."

Raito breathed a sigh of relief (it was a human habit he hadn't stopped yet). "Nice. Did you look at the whole thing when you got it? The spells are fucking awesome." He grabbed two apples and started gnawing on both, spitting out the stems and seeds onto the floor. "There's one that'll unleash pent-up feelings in someone all at once, paralyzing them and hurting them if there's enough of it. Sounds like something the Shinigami king could use to weed out guys like you."

"Yeah. A long time ago when things were active around here, if someone was acting suspicious, the king-not the one now-could summon you to his throne and have one of his flunkies use that spell on you. If it did nothing, your name was cleared and you were let go. If something was detected, he'd throw your ass in one of the hells before you could say 'Whoops'. A friendship landed you in level five, but loving someone got you roasting in level three. His intentions were good-no one wanted to fight over lives like in the plague years, but it harmed those who were only trying to be good. The Shinigami who might actually do harm were undetectable, because if they were in an actual relationship with another, their emotions weren't being squeezed inside them." Saying this made Ryuk grumble something about stupid rulers not knowing how to protect their lands and reached for an apple himself. "No one knows how to do it now except us, of course. Enough emotional Shinigami were destroyed that the king no longer needed the magic-users."

"So where did you find the book? At a flea market or something?"

"As a matter of fact, I did!" Ryuk snickered. "Just kidding. I was flying around Japan one night, looking for something to do, and I saw a library. Being bored out of my mind, I entered the spirituality section, wanting to see what the humans said about my kind and have a good laugh or two. In the middle of one of them was a big book that reminded me of an English dictionary. I pulled it out, only to have it not pass through me as it smashed my toe." He winced at the memory, which made Raito's foot twitch in sympathy pain. "Then I opened the book, realized what it had inside, picked it up somehow, and flew back to my place."

"Nice one!" Raito high-fived Ryuk, and their claws clicked together and made a sound like a typewriter. "It's all very easy to do, I don't see why they couldn't memorize it!"

"Not everyone back then was as dexterous as we are, Raito. Plenty of Shinigami don't even have hands. I'm one of the human-shaped ones, but most from that time were armless wonders that wrote in their Death Notes by dripping water or bodily fluids."

Raito bent down and kissed Ryuk, taking care not to cut his tongue on his boyfriend's fangs. He slid around for a few seconds, pulled out, licked the kanji for water on Ryuk's hand, and shrugged. "Perhaps a few had to do that."

"I'd imagine. An actual kiss of death!" Ryuk smiled a genuine smile of relaxation as he returned the kiss with a little extra, getting a feel for Raito's back while he was at it, stroking the soft wings and topping it off with a squeeze to the ass, which made both Shinigami shiver.

"Do the same to me or I'll try to bring you back to life."

"Yes master," laughed Raito. He stroked Ryuk's wings first, enjoying the fluffy-smooth feel that reminded him of a penguin chick. Tingles came to Raito's fingers (not the transforming kind, the good kind) as he gently gripped each joint. Then he hoisted himself onto Ryuk's broad shoulders and began to pat his back like a xylophone.

"Fuck Rule 36. I'm not trying to come back to life. A little death will do." Raito began to laugh like every crazy villain in every movie, but with a titillating undertone.

"Right-o, Raito." They hopped onto the squishy bed as Ryuk unscrewed the lightbulb.


	7. Parole

Chapter 7

The night had been very pleasant, to say the least, thought Raito as his brain kicked him awake. There had been a few noobish mistakes on both sides, but it made them both go satisfied into that good night, and in Raito's case, sleepy enough to make waking up very unpleasant.

Then Raito forced his eyes open and looked to his side.

Oh shit. Talk about a turn-off!

In the place where Ryuk had seen him off to sleep was a card that said, if translated to l33t speak, "he's in ar hel watin for a lif ban".

Damn! Raito managed to roll to the floor, still wrapped in the blanket, and flipped through the spell book as fast as his heart would be pounding if he were still a human, and found the spell he needed. He waved the kanji for meet, punched it and whispered "to Ryuk".

---------------

20 seconds later, Raito materialized in Ryuk's cell.

The ceiling and walls were made of pure obsidian that shined like a freshly-waxed car, with spikes jutting out like giant fishhooks. It didn't have a door, just bars made of fire that crackled and emitted a sulfury stench into what would've been the air. Hanging from the center of the ceiling by chains was Ryuk, clawing at his binds like a caged animal until he spotted Raito.

"How did you..." Ryuk's voice lacked its usual playful sting as he turned to Raito and held his hand weakly.

"Spell. Do you know what these chains are made of?"

"Metal on the outside, fire on the inside. If you crack them open, it'll seep out and harm even Shinigami."

"Not a problem. Remember when I was reading your spellbook?"

Ryuk suddenly laughed, and when he spoke his voice was stronger. "Oh yeah. Wasn't there some protection magic, Albus Dumbledore?"

"Yes, and that's exactly what I'll do." Raito drew first the symbol for fire, then the symbol for shield, punched at Ryuk and drew his fist to his chest as what he had instead of blood turned to ice. "For at least an hour we'll be guarded against fire. If I cast another protection spell, the fire protection will go away, so don't get any bright ideas midway," said Raito with a smirk.

After waiting a few seconds for the protection to fully activate (installing additional updates?), Ryuk shouted "shijimi-suru!" and sliced the air with a free hand, making the chains crumble and drip magma onto the floor. Ryuk shook the debris off after a few shakes and followed Raito through the firey gates, the flames licking them but

never burning.

Ryuk's voice was back at full strength, but deadly serious. "Thank you. Now we have to escape from this place. We're in the Level 3 complex right now, which means we got 5 levels to get through before we're out of hell. After Level 8 is the castle, and once your get out the door you're home free. There are a few guards, but they're still sleeping."

"How do you know this all, Ryuk?"

"I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut while I was being dragged to this dump. It's always the quiet ones you gotta watch for, hyuk hyuk."

Raito looked around the prison, which reminded him of To-oh but darker and drearier. They flew across the levels quickly, due to the fact that Shinigami didn't break the rules a lot. Few cells were built, and even fewer were occupied. Most of the occupied cells were filled with telltale red dust that revealed the prisoner had been starved of deaths to, well, death. They flew in a diagonal pattern of mostly straight lines until they came upon a pale gray staircase.

"Almost there," chanted Ryuk quietly, more to himself than to Raito.

From then on, it was smooth sailing. They jetted across the dreary fortress as fast as possible, so when they flew up a long circular staircase they both threw up in their mouths a little. But right as they approached the door to freedom, someone materialized behind them and grabbed their shoulders.

"Going somewhere?"


	8. Free

Chapter 8

The King sighed, disappointed. "Ryuk, Ryuk, Ryuk...once such a paragon, now heart-whipped like a human...what happened to you? Did boredom drive you to this?"

Ryuk was silent as he felt handcuffs squeezing his wrists.

"Did you not think of the example it would set to the other Shinigami? Sure, your little peccadillo would not have done any harm, but it would have set an example. It is a slippery slope, and before you can say 'Whoops', we will all be fighting over the remaining population of humans just like hundreds of years ago." He smirked at his use of the running gag and squeezed Ryuk and Raito together like a child making Ken and Barbie kiss. "Did you really think that King Jidon wouldn't find out sooner or later?"

Ryuk grumbled and swung his bound hands backwards at King Jidon's armored chest.

"I was impressed by your search for a loophole in the law, Ryuk. Turning a human into a Shinigami, that was ridiculous, but it worked. But even one more Shinigami is one too many. You have still created a new life, rebirthing a living creature into a spirit. If you wanted Raito so much, why didn't you just watch him and kill him when he wasn't fun anymore?"

"Because we fell in love, and repressed love is very dangerous. After you express an emotion, you don't feel as affected by it, and can focus on other things. If you deny yourself something for a while, you start to crave it. Better to get regular doses of it than pine for it constantly." He glared at the head Shinigami with luminous yellow eyes.

King Jidon laughed, digging his claws into their backs. "How emotional of you, Ryuk. Emotion itself is weakness. The very fact that you have weakness makes you obsolete. And the obsolete must be destro-AUGH!"

Raito lifted his hand and waved "ice" (it was very hard to draw that kanji backwards), shooting a cold ray at the monarch's eyes. The pain made King Jidon loosen his grip on Ryuk and Raito, letting them flap about a meter away.

Raito stared into King Jidon's small maroon eyes. "You could've just let us have our fun and leave us alone. If you make a big deal out of it, the other Shinigami will be worried about falling in love so much that a few will fall in love and have babies and end everything just because you didn't let sleeping dogs lie."

All Ryuk could do was watch as Raito fired energy at the King, who didn't seem to be defending himself well. He was just floating there like a pie-plate UFO in a B-movie, armor melting and body stationary. Every time the Shinigami King tried to make a move, a bolt of lightning hit his arm, or fire hit him on the neck, and one amusing stroke of lightning hit him in the crotch, sending him hurtling to the ground in pain.

Ryuk chuckled. "Well, it's not like he'll be needing them..."

Then King Jidon flew back up, bruised and battered but still alive. He stared at Ryuk and Raito, eyes full of hatred. The red and black plate mail that covered everything but his hands and head was mostly charred and melting, exposing his tight yellow skin. With his wings beating at a hummingbird's pace, the King lunged forward at Ryuk, who almost made a dodge and winced as his upper chest took a cut meant for his neck.

"I am only trying to save the pathetic little humans! Why do you want our bread and water to disappear? Are you suicidal, like that lovebird Romeo was when he thought his little morsel was dead?"

Raito sighed and casted a fire spell, only to watch the flame bounce off into the king, who was laughing again.

"Fool! When you thought I was in pain from that below-the-belt hit, I was casting a protective spell on myself. None of your little cantrips will faze me now!" King Jidon growled and punched Raito, who staggered a few feet back. Raito clawed at the King a few times, but he only managed to scrape his chin before getting kicked, catapulting him across the castle, eventually landing on the grand staircase, sliding on it to the floor.

"Ryuk...please, try to..." Raito's voice quivered as he struggled to stay alive

"What do you want?" Ryuk looked down at his weakened boyfriend.

"Cast a spell!"

"I can't, my hands are bound!"

"Then do the one...it only requires dancing, no hands. The funny one."

"You don't even know what it'll do! It could kill the user for all I know!"

"It's worth a shot, and we're damned anyway..."

Ryuk clenched his jaw. "Alright, as you wish."

Although it was apparent that the spell was meant to be performed on the ground and not in the air, Ryuk pulled off the dance. Indeed, it was very similar to the hokey cokey, he thought as he put his right foot in, took his right foot out, in, out, in, out, and shook it all about. He snapped his fingers, clicked his tongue, turned himself around, and realized what it was all about when he looked at King Jidon. His face was drained of what little color it had before, he was flapping his wings much slower, and he was no longer grinning that sadistic grin.

Raito smiled as he felt a surge of energy flow through him. Ryuk didn't seem too bad either, with his dancing becoming more and more rapid as Raito felt even more renewed, so he floated up next to Ryuk and sliced off the handcuffs, who then pinned the King to the wall with a quiet thump.

"Don't dance anymore, I got another idea," said Raito as he looked at the King, who was hardly staying in the air. He waved his hands over his heart and then at King Jidon, and began to chant.

"Elekanahmennahmenahtumahtumelekanahmenelekanahmennahmenahtumahtumelekanahmen..."

"No Raito, that's a waste of time! Just claw at-"

"Why do you babble so?" The King's voice was shadow of its old self.

"Should this being have any love in his heart..."

"May it burn him from the inside!" Raito clenched his fists and pointed at the powerless monarch.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" King Jidon screamed the little-known internet meme as his body turned black and then to liquid and dripped out of the cracks in his decimated armor, starting with his feet.

"That's not love that the spell found inside me! That was merely desire to not have both the realms destroyed because my favorite fellow Shinigami couldn't control something he shouldn't have had in the first place! I'm dying of love for life! Not for love of anyon..."

King Jidon's wings finally melted into a dark mud, and after a five-second journey, his ashes landed on the floor.

"I heard 'desire'. Must've been a Freudian slip." Raito smirked.

Ryuk wagged his finger at Raito and smiled. "Hentai. Save that for later."

The two contentedly glided out of the castle.


	9. For Life

Epilogue

From that point, it was smooth sailing (No, really, trust me, I'm the author). Ryuk and Raito made it out of the castle, and the guards seemed to be not only unconscious, but horribly amnesiac. Once Ryuk and Raito got their Death Notes from their room, they swept through one high-security prison and one death row like two strains of the same illness, restoring themselves to good health by leaving them nearly empty (no reason not to go nuts, with no L on their tail).

After that long hiatus from the Shinigami realm, Raito conjured up a plan. It would be painfully boring, Earth trips or not. Why not bring a little bit of Earth to his new home?

"So what I'm saying is, I want to bring a bunch of video games and computers here. We already love video games, and with the computer, we can play even more of them and do many other things. Did you know that there are whole sites dedicated to helping bored people not be bored?" Raito's thumbs twiddled in anticipation.

Ryuk grinned. "I'm for it! Sounds like the deus ex machina that the we need to do more than lay around and sleep."

---------------

For the next few days, many computer store employees noticed that their inventories were mysteriously shrinking. Top-of-the-line computers were taken straight from the display counters without tripping off any alarms. Boxes of Halo 3 and World of Warcraft didn't have any CDs inside, sending swarms of angry customers pounding at the doors 2 hours before store opening. Why couldn't they just pirate the damn software? That'd at least leave copies for the stores to sell.

And the worst part?

Those thieves didn't seem to need tech support!

---------------

As for Nintendo, Wiis were grabbed right off of the assembly line and vanished into thin air, much to the horror of the factory workers, who needed time off to recover from shock. This slowed the production of the coveted game system to an almost-complete stop for about a month.

For about the same amount of time, Guitar Hero 3 was so rare that $9000 didn't seem so high as long as you were guarenteed a copy. Shouldn't the thieves be easy to spot, considering the size of the box?

The masses eventually forgot about the Great Game Robbery (no evidence, no suspect, no point) and enjoyed the reduced crime rate.

---------------

Tourism to Earth skyrocketed.

Several Google searches revealed the locations of apple orchards around the worlds. The Shinigami ate them right off the trees: red delicious, golden delicious, fuji, granny smith, gala, akane, mutsu, indo, and even crab apples were gobbled right up. All the Shinigami cheered when they found that there was an entire computer company named after their favorite food, and immediately stole an entire shipment of iMacs from the back of a truck.

The realm was stuffed with stolen electronics that somehow ran without electricity, with boredom levels at an all-time low. They played Super Smash Bros Brawl until human eyes would bleed, listened to all sorts of music they had downloaded for free (who ever heard of a god being sued?) until human ears would go deaf, and having massive DDR competitions that would make human muscles tear and human bones crack like fortune cookies.

Ryuk and Raito, having disposed of King Jidon, became the rulers of the realm, though you wouldn't know it by looking at them. If hidden cameras were stuck inside, they would show them having fun just like the other Shinigami. Most days they didn't even remember they were the kings.

Raito's contributions to the stash were some of the few non-electronics. He stole two of Tatsuya's prized fencing foils, and the duels were good for cooling off and warming up your fingers before a big showdown.

As for rules, they didn't modify them too much. One, they were lazy, and two, they were mostly fair.

However, they did change a few things.

"Shinigami may fall in love and lust, and go to Earth as long as desired, as long as they continue to write in their Death Note regularly.

Additionally, a Shinigami may have sexual relations with as long as no offspring are made.

Any pregnancies in female Shinigami will automatically be terminated. If a male Shinigami impregnates a human female, the human will automatically die."

Raito set down the pen and closed the Master Death Note. "We're no longer legally damned. Our records have been cleared and we can start from the very beginning. What do you think?"

Ryuk leaned over and gave Raito a quick kiss. "And I bet you think this too. Isn't that right, Raito?"

END

A/N: Thank you for reading my first serious story! I might do a few "omakes" (extras), but tell me if you liked it!


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